Recent threads on LA banking have been very helpful and I want to extend the west coast conversation to San Francisco. If anybody has a good feel for the banking scene here, could you please share your thoughts / experiences? Especially interested in learning more about GS, MS, JEF, CVP, Laz and any other reputable firms that come to mind in this area. TIA!
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Rent is insanely high.
Bump
They only work until 1am PT while east coast works until 4am ET. But west coast bankers have to sometimes be on calls scheduled east coast morning
Shout out Qatalyst for your list. $54,045mm in transaction size for 2020 only doing tech.
Top players in the space: Qatalyst, GS and MS...Qatalyst arguably the best of the three. The next three arguably are Evercore, Lazard (works with Google/IBM a lot) and JPM. (Centerview in that mix potentially as well). CS, JEF, BOFA are strong as well.
This is most accurate
Is there a big difference between MS San Francisco and MS Menlo Park?
Menlo is tech and SF is West Coast coverage
There’s a clear top 3: Qatalyst, GS, MS
After that, I’d put JPM. Evercore has been climbing recently as well. Lazard is ok too.
Then you have BAML, Citi, CS that all do fine but not great
Not sure why that got spaced tf out. Pls fix
Dude you are an analyst who wrote this. How cringe you want to be
Thoughts on Moelis SF? Seen mixed comments on the board. Thanks.
Doing well in terms of deal flow in the past few years. MDs at the office were previous BB rainmakers, office is laid back but everyone is very sharp. Exits consistently UMM/MF Tech space.
Awesome, thanks for the reply.
thoughts on lazard, SF? interested in both tech & hc
SF as a city sucks. Spent a year and a half there and did not enjoy it at all. Shit bars, decent (but expensive) food, boring people, high rent, shit on the sidewalks, everything smells)
From speaking with friends and bankers in SF there's as many people who hate it this much as there are people who love it.
Thats fair. My old director has spent his whole career there. But with covid soooo many of the people I knew in the city left.
Did you move to NYC after SF/know anyone that did? I’ve been in SF for a bit over a year and am hoping to stay in banking, but move to NYC (family). How common is this both, considering both internal mobility and going to another bank?
Yes i moved from sf to nyc. I dont think its impossible to move internally but its by no means the norm
.
Fucking hell there’s a new thread on this same topic like every 6 weeks, just use the search function guys lol
Completely agree, half of the threads are duplicate information. It's ridiculous people cannot use the search function
Ah yes, because each incremental thread is so cumbersome to you on this free internet platform, sorry to inconvenience you, managing director.
Or, some threads might be out dated? Information changes? The search bar on this site kinda sucks? Hilarious how hard people mentally get off to saying “oh this has been discussed ad nauseam plz srch” when the last useful post is from like 2015.
Thoughts on Houlihan Lokey?
Thoughts on GCA SF?
Curious given their recent acquisition by Houlihan
Anyone know why JPM Tech exits place so poorly?
Because its not a good group. The tech M&A team isn't in the elite 3 that is GS, MS, qatalyst. And the tech coverage team is just terrible culture and bad deals.
"Bad exits" from JPM Tech? Are users on WSO this deluded?
Thoughts on BMO Tech?
2022 update on Barclays: Barc has also been doing really well lately and the analysts have the option to work exclusively out of the new SF office which is really nice (previously Menlo Park only). Agree that Qatalyst pretty much dominates majority of $1bn+ tech M&A, but Barc has been exiting pretty well in SF (one went to Symphony, one went to Search Light, and one in the current class will be going to a MF)
how do you think barc compares to citi sf in tech?
JEF SF been doing real well with a lot of M&A / LevFin activity. Sweaty ass culture but good deal flow and recent on cycle exits include Clearlake and Onex.
I thought Clearlake didn’t recruited out of banks and only took laterals from other PE firms?
Does GS have a C&R team
How is Rothschild Palo Alto
i don’t think they have juniors
Who?
Yes
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